Driving through Redlight District

I finally learned how to show videos on my blog. This is a video of what it is like to drive through town. People, animals and cars share the streets here. We are driving through an area called Redlight District (no similarities to the infamous Redlight District in Amsterdam:). The video is a little over five minutes long. This is what I experience for about 3-4 hours everyday since that is how much time we spend driving from place to place.

My internet connection is too slow here so I couldn't actually check to make sure this video works. Someone let me know if it doesn't work!

Stories - Baby Joanna

I want to tell you up front that this one has a happy ending! We received baby Joanna (6 months) as one of our patients about three weeks ago. Joanna was born with a clept lip and palate which means that her lip and the top of the roof of her mouth didn't develop properly and so there is a hole where there should be a lip and palate. These aren't that unusual in the U.S. but we fix them. Here is a photo of baby Joanna.

In Africa, many times the mother and the community will reject the baby because they believe there is a curse. In this case, Joanna's mother Rebecca did reject her (but didn't abandon her). She brought her to the ship a few months ago for help but the baby was too underweight to have surgery. So Joanna was put on a feeding program and the nurses also helped Rebecca to bond with Joanna.

So all was well for a while. Joanna gained weight and Rebecca took on her role as mother. So a month or so ago, Rebecca brought Joanna to the ship to see if she was ready for surgery. Upon her full physical evaluation, it appeared she had a heart murmur and the anesthetists were concerned she had either an ASD or VSD (which are basically holes in the walls of the heart). They were concerned that she would not survive the surgery and so we gave Rebecca the bad news - we wouldn't be doing surgery on baby Joanna.

Obviously, Rebecca was devastated and cried and cried. I can only imagine how much she hurt knowing that her baby was going to grow up in a society that shuns people with deformities. Rebecca was so upset that she was referred to us so that we could provide ongoing emotional support.

So we visited Rebecca and Joanna (and big sister Madeleine) 3 weeks ago. Rebecca told us that she thought God was angry with her and that was why Joanna had this problem. So we told her how much God loved them and he didn't cause this and all the other explanations we come up with that really don't provide answers.

Now for the good part. For the last two weeks we have had a pediatric oncologist, Tom Walwyn, from the UK going out on visits with us so we asked if he would evaluate Joanna so we could get a better idea of what her problem was. At this point, we had no idea what her heart problem was and whether she would live a long or short life. Dr. Tom evaluated her last week and detected NO heart murmur - in fact she was perfectly healthy. So he arranged for Joanna to come to the ship on Wednesday for an ultrasound of her heart.

Fast forward to Wednesday. Baby Joanna and Rebecca come to the ship for the ultrasound. Dr. Wolfgang, our new crew doctor and heart specialist, and Dr. Tom perform the ultrasound and they see only a strong, healthy heart. So we are all now very excited. Dr. Tom gets a hold of the person in charge of the surgery schedule and she says we can fit Joanna in the next day for her surgery. So now Rebecca is crying and I'm crying. And we all have huge smiles.

It turns out, though, that Joanna had a respiratory infection so to be safe, we are postponing her surgery a few days after a few days on antibiotics. Joanna's surgery will be next Monday, Oct 1, so Rebecca and Joanna will come to the ship on Sunday to be admitted.

Tom says sometimes VSDs/ASDs repair themselves on their own. I'm skeptical because it has only been a month or so since we heard the murmur but it's possible. I prefer to believe God healed her. We have been praying so much that God would make a way for Joanna and I believe He has. If Dr. Tom hadn't come and if Dr. Wolfgang hadn't come or if they had come earlier or later than they did, baby Joanna wouldn't be having surgery. And we won't be back to Liberia until 2010 at the earliest. Joanna would have grown up with her deformity and her mother would have lived all these years believing Joanna had a heart problem.

Here's a photo of Rebecca, Joanna and Madeleine. I can hardly wait to post an after-surgery photo!!

Peace,

Michele

Photos

We visited Joseph's family again today to give them some photos and I took some pictures of our adventure of getting to the house. Fortunately, it hasn't rained much in the last two days so it was mostly just muddy - previously it was flooded and we had to walk through the water.

These are the houses we walked through over paths to get to Joseph's house. They are baking these clay log things which they sell - that's why there is so much smoke.

Here are some of the clay logs. People actually eat clay - they consider it a food item!

A little girl in her home as we walked by.

This is Joseph's house in the forefront. Today it was just really muddy getting to the house - last week we walked through water.

We are walking away from the house now. In front of me is Joseph's oma (grandma) who raised him. You can see more of the clay logs.

These houses make me think about how little we actually need to live (of course, they don't have winter). Not that they should live like this but they do and they survive. It puts my own possessions into perspective.
This is the view from our car as we are backing up to leave. As I've said before, we are like monkeys in the zoo and whereever we go, people gather around us and stare. You can see the small crowd that gathered to look at us. Rather than just let them stare at us, I usually get out of the car and walk through the crowd and shake their hands (they do that here with everyone, even tiny children) and ask their names and take photos. It's my 15 minutes of fame!

This last photo is just for fun - some schoolboys who wanted me to take their picture. Liberian children are some of the cutest kids ever!

Peace,

Michele

TGIF

I'm thankful this week is over. It's been a good week but stressful as we've had to support two families who have lost loved ones recently. Families are starting to gather from all over the country and the grieving is occurring en masse.

Today started off great...it was a beautiful, sunny day which is unusual since it is the rainy season. We started off by visting the family of Rose, who passed away a couple of weeks ago (I wrote about her on Sept. 11). We were just making a short visit to drop off a 100 lb bag of rice because we knew Rose's funeral was on Saturday. When we first got there, we found out Rose (a different one than the one who passed away) had had her baby the day before. So we got to see the new baby and take photos. The baby won't have a name for at least another week.

While we were waiting for the family patriarch, George, to get there, I played with lots of kids -the best part of the job. They kept trying to take my bag because I always have candy in there for them. Here's Jean holding baby George (that's not the new baby) and Rose who just had the baby.

So finally George showed up and we gave him the rice and prayed for them. Then he said that they would be bringing home the body of Rose later that day and asked if we would come back and take family photos. Yikes...not something I was looking forward to but, of course, we agreed that we would come back later that day.

So next, we went to Korto's granny (her name is Mama). I wrote about Korto earlier, the 3 year old girl who passed away about a month ago. Hanging out on Mama's porch is really fun. There are lots of kids and Mama's English is good so she is easy to understand and we can actually have full conversations.

Jean and I had already decided we wanted to help Mama restart her selling business. She used to sell dried fish and other meat products but when Korto got sick, she had to quit selling to take care of the little one. That was seven months ago and she has no money left.

Before we told Mama we wanted to help, we asked her to tell us about her previous business. For someone who has never been to school, she is one smart businesswomen so we are very encouraged that she will be able to make a good living if we provided the startup costs.

So it was the most amazing experience when Jean told her Mercy Ships was going to give her $100.00 to restart her business. That's about 5 months of income here. She just kept raising her hands and thanking us and shaking our hands and praising Jesus (she's the one who just became a Christian about a month ago, the week Korto died). She was so overjoyed. It is really an amazing feeling to impact someone's life so directly and then to see their reaction. Just watching her face as she counted out the money Jean handed her was priceless. Wow, I wish I could explain it better in words so I can remember the feeling.

As we were leaving I took a photo with all the kids there and had them hold my Eddie doll (the Principal Financial Group mascot). My friends from Principal sent him to me so I could take photos of him in Liberia. Principal has a contest to see all the places Eddie goes so they will submit a photo and maybe we'll win (what do we win, Jamie?).

We did two more visits and then it was time to return to Grace's home to take the photos. When we got there, George and the casket had not yet arrived so once again, we hung out and played with kids. Here's a few of the photos.

This is 4 year old Mawi (holding Eddie). She looks like this because instead of saying 'smile' when taking their photo, we say 'show your teeth.' So she showed her teeth! Mawi talks non-stop and likes to beat up on her older brother Emmanual. Mawi and Emmanual are two of the children of the Rose who died. She also has a sister named Handful. I told Mawi she got the wrong name - she should have been named Handful. She didn't understand a word I said:)

This is a little neighbor girl. You find many times, girls this age are expected to look after younger siblings.

Another group photo. You will see that Mawi is missing because she was very mad that I wouldn't let her keep my Eddie doll. She refused to be in the picture. Handful is the little girl in the middle with the blue dress and the patch under her eye. She just had surgery this week on the ship to remove a benign tumor.

This last photo is the neighbor doing laundry. Their babies go whereever they go and they often sleep through situations like this.

So finally the van appeared at the house and the men carried the casket into the house. The next 15 or so minutes after this was one of the most distressing experiences in my life. The mourning began almost as if on cue. The women started screaming and wailing and falling on the ground inside the house.

We were waiting outside with most of the kids, not really sure what we were supposed to do. Finally, someone led us into the house so we could take photos of the family around the casket. It was extremely stressful and people were inconsolable.

The worst part is that the children were completely ignored. While people were trying to console the adults, Mawi and Handful were just standing against the wall staring at the casket. I picked up Mawi and put my arm around Handful and just held them and prayed over them. Adults just kept walking past us (including their father) and no one even looked at the kids. Eventually I took Mawi out of the house but a lady outside took her from me and took her back in. So I went back into the house and Mawi again was standing against the wall alone. Handful was sitting next to her aunt, patting her back. Handful is only 8 years old. Someone should have been patting her back.

While we chalk up many experiences we can't explain to cultural differences, this is one I will never understand. I can't imagine the trauma these children have gone through today (and I'm told this kind of wailing/screaming will go on all today and tomorrow). And I guess one day, they will mourn like this in front of their children.

So I probably sound pretty judgmental in this post. But just because a culture has always acted in a certain manner doesn't make it right. Today is one of those days where you realize you can't change the world but hopefully I made a small difference for Mawi and Handful.

Stories - Joseph

I could only hear one side of the phone conversation this morning but I knew it wasn't good. Jean was speaking to Thomas, the father of our 12-year old patient Joseph. She hung up the phone and just left the office. I knew Joseph had died...and I hadn't even got to meet him yet.

Joseph died yesterday (Monday) and was buried the same day. I find this very difficult to comprehend. In the U.S., when someone dies, we usually have a funeral where everyone can view the body and can say their good-byes. That is actually a luxury that requires money. I never thought of it as a luxury before.

In Liberia, people who have money only have money for real essentials, like food. They don't have money to keep a loved one who has passed away in a mortuary while funeral preparations are being made. People must be buried here very quickly (for obvious reasons). And so Joseph was buried the same day he died, before any of his family members could travel to Monrovia to say their good-byes.

Another luxury we have back home is a casket. Here the cost of a casket is far beyond what any ordinary person could ever expect to pay. They do have cemetaries here - the difference is that the body is buried in the hole in the ground without a casket and without a headstone. Sometimes they will place flowers. I felt sad wondering if anyone would visit Joseph's grave and how would they know where to find him.

We went to visit the family after Thomas called. It's been raining buckets here so we had to park the car a ways from the house and navigate our way through mud and water to get there. Because there is always so much flooding, many people have already put out concrete blocks, tires, etc. to make pathways to walk on and fortunately, this awkward path existed. We worked our way through a housing area that I can only describe as looking like the homeless camps we see back home. These houses were made of four tall sticks and then some raggedy tarps thrown over the tops. Everyone lives in poverty here but this seemed especially harsh.

But we finally reached Thomas' house and were welcomed in, as we always are. And as always, all the neighbors came to see what we were doing. There's really very little you can say during this kind of heartbreak except I'm sorry...and that's what we did. As my friend Gary told me, we usually say things to make ourselves feel better or less uncomfortable. I wished I could take away their heartache but I knew there were no words that could do this. We prayed for them and they were so grateful for our interest in them and their son...as if we were someone special. I was so humbled.

And then we left with a promise to return. We also left them with a 60 pound bag of rice. In this country, when someone dies, family and friends come to visit from all over the country. The family is then expected to feed all these people who come which is a very difficult burden. So Mercy Ships provides the rice. There will be some sort of a memorial for Joseph once all the family has a chance to travel to Monrovia.

Here is a photo of Joseph and Thomas about one month ago. I can see that Thomas was already sad. He did say today that he is happy that Joseph is no longer suffering. And that's what we hold on to.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever. Rev. 21:4

Ceilidh

If you're thinking 'huh' about my title, that's what I thought when I first saw the word. It's pronounced kaylee and it is the Scottish Gaelic word for visit. A ceilidh is a social event with music and dancing and we had one here Friday evening. It was the most fun I've had in a long time.

All we knew was that this event was for all ages, we would be dancing and you didn't need to have any dancing abilities (thankfully, since I have none). We all met outside on the dock at 7pm and then spent the next 2 1/2 hours dancing. There were at least 100 people there.

We learned maybe 10 or so dances with names like Stripping the Willow and the Gay Gardens. Our event leader would teach us the dance first and then once the music started, she would call out the steps over the PA system.

We were dripping sweat and laughing so hard for those 2 1/2 hours. My roommate, Megan, took photos when she wasn't dancing. These are some of the ones she took.








We're actually doing The Wave here (that's not Scottish:)

Signs

There are lots of funny signs and slogans to see when we're out in town so we always have our cameras ready to take a picture. Here are a few that we've seen.